If we use Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome as the paragon example it ought to be, we can see that while the "Pig Killer" brand on one of the primary characters has kerning that isn't so great, it's obviously meant to be two distinct words.

Hyphens are used in many compound words to show that the component words have a combined meaning (e.g. a pick-me-up, mother-in-law, good-hearted) or that there is a relationship between the words that make up the compound: for example, rock-forming minerals are minerals that form rocks.

Of these, I'm inclined to agree with the NYT - even though I strongly disagree with their stance on the Oxford comma.

The use of a hyphen is primarily of stylistic rather than grammatical significance, much like the Oxford comma. There are instances where I expect to see hyphens more often. But mostly, this is like the Oxford comma in the sense that you should ask the editor of the publication for which you are writing, and the editor tells you what the rule is going to be.

The Oxford comma is a crutch for those who aren't paying sufficient attention to the syntax of their writing. If my editor tells me to use it, then I use it. But it doesn't resolve any ambiguity in the utterance which includes it, because commas basically do not exist in speech. The belief that they prevent confusion between items in a list is predicated on the mistaken idea that written language has some kind of supremacy over spoken language. But the opposite is true; it is spoken language that precedes and shapes written language.

I don't think your final assertion is accurate or well supported. Written language and spoken language both reshape each other rather than one exclusively preceding the other. The meme of the "thot" or the verbalization of "LoL" both come from the dynamic interplay of the written word and the spoken one.

I have never heard anyone verbalize either of those. But fair enough, it is a process that can go both ways. However, most of the time it runs in favor of having the things people actually say become the standard usage in writing. There is some cause to believe that a change deriving from a particular working-class pronunciation habit—"f" for the unvoiced "th" sound—will supplant the current standard in British Received English, for example. At present, there are more native speakers of British English who use this pronunciation than there are speakers who do not, and the usage is creeping into written language because people write what they hear.

Regarding the case in Maine (which I was aware of, but had forgotten about), the lack of clarity was not derived from the presence or absence of an Oxford comma. The culprit was some ambiguity over whether the prepositional phrase "for shipment" should be construed as "for shipment or distribution." The court held that an Oxford comma would have made it clear, which is true. But the Oxford comma is not the only remedy, and it is not even the best one.

The ambiguity derives from the use of a prepositional phrase to end the penultimate item in a list. So one solution would be to skip the prepositional phrase, so that the list ends "packing or distribution." This would be problematic if there is some compelling reason why packing for shipping needs to be exempt from overtime but packing for other reasons does not. But probably there isn't such a concern, and the legislators just included unnecessary information in their phrasing.

Still another option would be to invert the order of presentation for the final two list items, as "distribution or packing for shipping" would eliminate the ambiguity that the court detected. This may be the best solution, since it preserves the exact phrasing. If "packing for shipping" is the only kind of packing that is meant to be exempted, then that'd be significant.

So. Oxford commas are a way of clarifying sloppy syntax, and the major use cases for them derive from 1) the careless application of prepositional phrases and 2) the possibility that the penultimate and ultimate items in a list may be construed as an appositive. But it is better to use tidy syntax, because of the dual nature of language as both writing and speech. If your utterance requires Oxford commas to render it unambiguous when it is written, then there is an underlying issue with your syntax that will persist when it is read aloud.

If I write to someone instructing him, "Please bring fishing line, fishhooks, corks, weights and worms on your next visit," (I live on the shore of a small lake), there is no syntactical ambiguity. The Oxford comma is useless here.

I'll disagree with you for the time being, but I think this gives us a very good idea for what plans we should take ICly. A bunch of surly grammarians hanging out by the back door of a warehouse in the docks will strongly dissuade others from investigating our presence without causing too much of a ruckus.

Then we can debate whether this would-be champion can be the "savior of the city, region, and the world or the savior of the city, region and the world."

Yes. But you have to watch out for the cigar rollers. I fancy that they would have a deep appreciation for the subtleties at hand, because they paid for people to read aloud to them on the factory floor, particularly from newspapers. Which, of course, do not use the Oxford comma.

It is settled then. If we see cigar rollers in the docks we will immediately return to the Goblin in order to get Viotto's finest dick jokes. Alternately, we'll take whatever second-rate swill we can get from Graveldick.

I don't have a problem with the Oxford comma, but it's not how I was taught. I have a distinct memory of my teacher pointing out that the use of "Or" or "and" or the like was meant in a way to both stand in for what we call the Oxford comma and to signal that this was the last item in the list. I smile at all of the Oxford comma memes I see because they're funny, but I also agree with Talanall that they're predicated upon a sloppy reading of the subject material.

Has your merry band of blackguards finished scheming? Or, for that matter, have you not finished but been seized by a desire to scheme someplace where Voitto is not? Do you want to go and do reconnaissance, or something?

Or should I just throw you, Frisbee-like, into the tumult of another encounter?

It's quite alright. I've been sluggish myself. Travel, and now recovering from a bug I picked up on the plane home.

I personally have no objection.

Here's a map for reference purposes. The warehouse your characters are interested in is the building in black. Other buildings are in contrasting colors, mostly for the sake of making it clear where one structure leaves off and the next begins. North is up.

The waterfront is generally northeastward from the mapped area. The Giggling Goblin is roughly westward.